Thursday, November 4, 2010

Lovely Japanese Bowls

(Note:  the following was written while suffering from a fever, a racking cough, and under the influence of drugs whose names I can't pronounce... beware...)

This is my favorite bowl--really!

I love the handmade look of it, and the fact that it was less than sen yen (ten dollars).  It's a nice size to put side dishes of vegetables in.  It has a beautiful green crackle glaze:

 ...deepest sea green in the center, fading to pale
celadon...

 ....which in turn blends smoothly into the dark fired rim.  And it is unusually shaped--somewhat oval, but not quite.








...and the edges are fluted, but irregular.  It makes me think of that Chinese word that means "the small imperfection which lends perfection to the whole".  I like that they have a word for that:))  I also like that I instantly understood what that word was supposed to mean, and could perceive a need for such a word.  Puts such a damper on the Sapir-Worf hypothesis.




I love this bowl--I really do.  But as soon as I got it home, a name for it sprang unbidden to my mind.  "No!"  I like this bowl, and I'm going to put food in it!  But...  this will not do!  In vain have I struggled.  My feelings will not be repressed- I must be allowed to say (that I have read Pride and Prejudice way too many times)...

...that my lovely bowl is, and shall forever remain,

                                              ... The Vagina Bowl.   Shoganai, ne.

6 comments:

  1. Wow! It loooks like a really big eye. Great bowl!

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  2. Thanks! I wish I could think of it as looking like an eye... I have to put food in it:))

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  3. Ha!
    Also my brother has a very similar bowl he bought in Japan when he was visiting our cousin for a week. CRAZY!

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  4. I second that. It totally looks like an eye. (And it's clearly designed. Oh dear...) Also, that last picture... If you stare at the 'pupil', it turns convex, like those trick masks they always show on tv programmes about vision. Well, it does for me anyway.

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  5. Falen--you have a cousin over here? Wow--where about does he(she)live?

    Daz--I just had to go try that! Oooh--it went convex, although it took a while because the light in this room is weird. Only for a second though.

    I will put up a proper post as soon as I wash the smoke smell out of my hair (more about that next week:))

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  6. Vagina bowl. Oh Amy! You have scarred my mind forever. I'll never look into my cereal bowl again without strange thoughts flittering through my head. Hmm! It will be unlikely that my wife will appreciate all those early morning...arousals.

    Truly, I think the bowl is gorgeous. It has - please take this the right way- that incredible look of the inside of a clam shell. I've always had a fascination with the smooth gradations there.

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